I need some camera/lens recommendations

Depthkit Depthkit Cinema
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I am looking to purchase a new camera setup for Depthkit Cinema but am not sure what my options are for cameras/lenses. Is the most important aspect that the cameras have USB video output? Also, are there lenses I can buy to match the other two FOVs the Azure Kinect has (if that supported)? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

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@WilliamOConnor this topic comes up from time to time (see here, here, here, and here), and though the landscape of cameras and lenses is constantly changing, the fundamentals of what makes a good pairing remain the same, and can be found in the Recommended Cameras section of the Depthkit Cinema documentation.

Finding a lens which is wide enough to match the Azure Kinect’s 120-degree wide field of view (WFOV) with rectilinear optics is likely going to be very difficult. We recommend sticking to the NFOV mode.

If you’re having trouble finding a camera with a built-in USB interface, consider using an regular camera connected to an HDMI USB capture interface like an Elgato Cam Link / HD60, Blackmagic UltraStudio Recorder, or Atomos Nexus.

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Thanks. I think I will go with the Black Magic 6k and Irix Lens setup that seems to be going around. I have one more question about refinement masks in depthkit cinema. Would introducing a Black Magic Ultimatte 12 work here to create a usable mask? They seem to be the best right now for chroma key and flipping it into a mask is one click in Final Cut Pro X.

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@WilliamOConnor - I haven’t used the Ultimatte before, but on paper it should work fine. You could even record the Ultimatte’s Matte Output on a second deck and have the Cinema color clip AND matte ready to import to your Depthkit project the moment you cut, with a couple of caveats:

  • Depthkit rounds up/down any gray pixels in the matte, so you may need to tweak the matte settings around challenging areas like hair which normally appear partially transparent.
  • This assumes that you trigger recording on both the Cinema camera and the matte recorder at the same time; Otherwise you’ll need to trim one or the other in post to ensure they start on the same frame.
  • They both need to record in a Windows Media Foundation compliant codec in order to enable Depthkit to import them; Otherwise, you’ll need to transcode them between recording and importing.

Let us know what workflow you end up going with.

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@WilliamOConnor - Any updates? Let us know if this didn’t completely answer your question. Otherwise, I will close the ticket.

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I’m going to test the Ultimatte shortly. Everything just arrived.